


either/or

by darkcomedylateshow



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Friends With Benefits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-27 01:54:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7598914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkcomedylateshow/pseuds/darkcomedylateshow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's been affiliated with Pied Piper for two years and working at it for one month. She threw away her job for it, burned every bridge in her contact list, pre-prepared monologues in the mirror about the faith she has in a 4K video chat platform, even though to her it's actually the most boring and predictable thing she can think of on the planet. </p><p>     So it seemed inevitable she’d slip up and sleep with someone in the process, but she didn’t think it would be Erlich fucking Bachmann.</p>
            </blockquote>





	either/or

     When Monica wakes up, the first words out of her mouth are: “Oh, _fuck_.” 

      “Hmm?” Erlich’s half-asleep, his face planted into the pillow. He lifts his head and stretches, so she fixes her shirt, trying to look like she’s in a hurry.  

     “I mean — hey.” She smiles uncomfortably. “Morning.” 

     Erlich finds his cell phone under the pillow and glances at it. “One p.m., actually.” 

     “It’s Saturday, right?” 

     “It is.” 

     “I have my spin class in an hour,” she mumbles, sitting up. The spin class does not actually exist, but it's a reflexive excuse. 

     They’re both sitting on opposite edges of the bed, facing away from each other. Monica can still see him in the mirror, so she focuses on herself — her mascara’s smudged under her eyes and her hair is a little stringier than she would have liked anyone to see. It doesn’t matter. She can’t fuck this up any worse. She's been affiliated with Pied Piper for two years and working at it for one month. She threw away her job for it, burned every bridge in her contact list, pre-prepared monologues in the mirror in the faith she has in a 4K video chat platform, even though to her it's actually the most boring and predictable thing she can think of on the planet. 

     So it seemed inevitable she’d slip up and sleep with _someone_ in the process, but she didn’t think it would be Erlich fucking Bachmann. 

     “Don't feel guilty. Everyone makes this mistake once,” he says, finally. “This whole valley is full of torrid affairs between majority shareholders, and… whatever it is you do."

     “This is a pretty normal mistake for me.” Monica digs through her purse for her cigarettes and opens the bedroom window. She doesn’t remember when she got dressed, but thank God for small miracles, even if she’s in gym shorts and a Stanford sweatshirt. It’s unattractive enough to rule out the possibility of morning sex or ever-again sex. 

     “This was all a one-time thing, though, right?”  

     “Definitely.” 

     “Cool,” he says, and then he’s out of her room, going down the hall. “I’ll see you Monday.” 

     Monica lights her cigarette and leans out the window. A jogger passing by notices her, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter at all, she tells herself.  

* * *

      “So we’re supposed to have a Skype meeting with this investor in New York,” Monica tells the programmers on Monday. “Should we let her know you’ll be joining us too?” 

 

     “Very thoughtful of you, Monica,” Dinesh says. “I guess I _would_ like a little bit of input on the next person we pick to fuck us over.” 

     “We’re only meeting with her because she seems agreeable. _Way_ less cut-throat than, say, Laurie.”  

     “Right. Because every movie ever made about investors in New York doesn’t contradict that at all.” 

     “This isn’t like Wall Street or something,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “She runs a tech incubator in Brooklyn and, in her words, wants to get her feet wet.” 

     “So she's a hipster who doesn’t know what she’s doing. Even better.” 

     Monica pinches the bridge of her nose. “Can _one_ of you just have a little faith? Gilfoyle?” 

     “No, he’s definitely right.” 

     “We all need to make a good impression,” she says, tersely, “so either act excited in the meeting or don’t come at all.” 

     She sneaks out from the kitchen to the back porch for a smoke. It’s sweltering even in the shade, one of those August heat waves that makes your shirt stick to your back. The only lighter she has is out of fluid, but she tries it anyway, again and again, until she gives it up and throws it back into her bag. Then she glances up and realizes Erlich’s on the other side of the pool, sprawled out on a deck chair, smoking weed. 

    “Doing alright?”

     “I didn’t see you,” she says, knowing full well that he’d definitely seen _her_.  

     “I come out here to contemplate sometimes,” he says, while she walks around the pool. “So I’m thinking — freemium. If it worked for Candy Crush Saga, it’ll work for us. Lite version for free, and then paywall the actually useful stuff like three-way conferencing —“

     “Can we — can we not talk about work?” she asks, walking around to the other side and sitting down in the empty chair. “Sorry. I just got done talking with this investor, and I think my head's about to explode.” 

     “Understood.” Erlich laughs and hands her a Rastafari-striped Bic.  

     “I threw out most of my lighters,” she admits, “so I don’t get tempted.” 

     “And what self-help parenting blog did you find that tip in?” 

     “It’s a vice, okay?” Monica says, blowing smoke from the side of her mouth. “I do it less often than Laurie puts stevia in her coffee."

     “Only someone like Laurie Bream could enjoy stevia in anything. It tastes like a sick joke.”

     “Yeah,” Monica laughs, “it’s pretty disgusting.” 

     After maybe half a minute of sitting there in silence, Monica realizes there’s no easy way to revive the conversation. She looks at her phone, scrolling through junk Amazon emails, and then finally clears her throat: 

     “So, um. Dinesh and Gilfoyle are great at what they do, and I'm sure they're great people, but they're _really_ weird around me. Like I’m an intruder. I don’t think they like me at all.” 

     "I mean, you _are_ a woman in a heavily male-dominated industry."

     “I was just going to say that you're all already good friends, and I'm an outsider, but sure, the woman thing works too.”

     “Monica,” he starts, “this is _not_ Raviga —“

     “I know that.”

     “Let me finish. This is not Raviga. There is no corporate ladder. In fact, Jian Yang broke the stepladder last week.” 

     “I really don't know where you're going with this.” 

     “You can't float by here on good looks and charm,” Erlich says, taking the lighter back from her and using it to tamp down the weed in his pipe. “If you're ever going to make friends with the guys, you have to actually hang out with them.” 

     “And do what, play team-building games?”  

* * *

     “The second one was the lie,” Monica says, gesturing with a beer bottle. “You said you were from Karachi.” 

     “Wow, that was like, last month. Observant.” Dinesh finishes his tequila, wincing as it goes down. 

 

     “Okay. Two truths and a lie: I went to Catholic school, but I'm not Catholic —”

     “Is that two truths or one truth?” Gilfoyle asks. 

     “Just one.” 

     “Too specific to be a lie!” Dinesh tosses an empty takeout box at her. "You suck at this, Monica.” 

     “Yeah, Monica.” Gilfoyle honest-to-God laughs a little, which is terrifying. “You suck.” 

     Dinesh’s phone buzzes. “Fucking _shit_. I have my Skype meeting with the programmers in half an hour.” 

     “It’s 10:30.” 

     “And it’s 8:30 in most of Eastern Europe. Almost like there’s a time difference or something.” Dinesh glances at her, almost as if he’s afraid he offended her, so she just smiles. 

     “I’ll get out of your hair,” Monica says.  

     “Hey, Monday night drinks should be a thing,” Dinesh says. “Tuesday too, for that matter.” 

     She mulls over it, then says: “Maybe I’ll see you then?” 

     “That would be cool, I think.” 

     She stumbles back to the kitchen where she left her purse, and sees Erlich through the window, still sitting out there on the deck chair. He sees her and gives her an exaggerated thumbs up. 

     Once she’s outside, she calls: “You’re like my Yoda or something.”

     “If you put alcohol in them, that’s half the battle,” Erlich says. “The rest was all you.”

     She sits on the edge of the deck chair, in the same place she’d been hours before. “God, I don’t even know what I’m doing here. It’s Monday night.” 

     “And how many rounds of Two Truths and a Lie did you lose?”

     “I don’t know. Twenty?”

     “Let me drive you.”  

* * *

      “I’m just saying, it was my whole life,” she tells him, staring out the window. The seats don’t lean back in Erlich’s van. Even _her_ stupid car has seats that lean back. “You know how long I worked at Raviga? A _long_ fucking time. They hired me out of college.” 

     “So how many years did you work there?” 

 

     “Eight.” 

     “So you’re—” 

     “What?” She glances at him with her brow furrowed. “Thirty? Yes. It’s not a big deal. This isn’t 1980.” 

     “I was going to say, so you’re upset about quitting.” Erlich turns into the neighborhood her apartment building is in and flicks on his high beams. “I don’t blame you. It was a sweet gig. But you left it for something even sweeter.” 

     “I know.” She wants to give that _I believe in Pied Piper_ monologue again, but she’s too tired, and the fact she _believes_ doesn’t mean jack shit if they don’t make any money. “I just have to adjust. That’s the hardest part.” 

     Monica gives him the last bit of directions to her apartment, and when he puts the car in park, they both go silent. She pretends to look at her phone, slinging her bag over her shoulder.

     “Should I walk you in?” 

     “I mean—” she clears her throat, pointing out the window to her ground-floor apartment, less than twenty feet away from them. “I’m right over there.” 

     “You never know,” he says. “There are all sorts of unsavory characters between here and your door.” 

     “You’re probably right,” she laughs. 

     He parks the van and walks her to the door. She’s standing there, with her keys in her hands, thinking about how easy it would be to walk away, lock the door, shut this all down before it gets out of control. 

     Erlich clears his throat, and starts to speak, but then she loses all decorum and leans in and kisses him—which is just as well, because he puts his arm around her and pulls her in and suddenly it's just them, nothing else. They barely make it to her room.

* * *

     She feels so stupid she could throw up. She hasn’t felt better in months.  

     “So this is a friends-with-benefits situation now, right?”   

 

     “I think so?” she says, but hesitates. “I mean, we _definitely_ shouldn’t—make our relationship public. Or whatever. It's a total breach of professional conduct. Right?”  

     She’s waiting for him to say something to convince her otherwise, but he just shrugs. 

     “They won’t take you seriously anymore. Not to mention Richard will blow a fucking gasket.” 

     “Yeah,” she says, exhaling smoke. “Erlich?” 

     “Uh-huh?”

     “Don’t feel—obligated to, you know, do all that. It’s not a big deal if I don’t finish.” 

     “I wanted to,” he says, pulling his shirt back on. “It was nice.” 

     “Oh.” She furrows her brow, genuinely surprised. “Thanks.” 

     “Anytime.” 

* * *

     Hours later, while she’s watching Adult Swim and basking in the afterglow, she gets a text:   

 

_D &G r onto us. Should probably hold off. _

     She texts back the only thing that encapsulates the whole situation: 

_:/_

* * *

     They steer clear of each other after that — Erlich always has some SeeFood thing to work on by the pool or incubee to micromanage, and Monica busies herself with emails and digital outreach and whatever inane tasks Jared hands her.  

 

     But she thinks about him, still. She doesn’t want to, but occasionally she sees him in the driveway or the kitchen, on the phone, eating yogurt, and _everything_ comes back to her, things that annoyed her before that she suddenly finds endearing, things that make her chest ache like the sound of him laughing or strong-arming a tech blogger over the phone or noisily emptying the dishwasher.  

     It turns out Dinesh and Gilfoyle are easier to hang out with than she expected, even if they’re dying to grill her on Erlich. She learns fast how to keep the conversation away from their personal lives, talking with them about TV or getting them to teach her to play one of their shooters, which she’s naturally terrible at.  

     She invites him once or twice, and he always politely declines. Too many irons in the fire, he says. It’s probably for the best.

     It drives her crazy. She spends most of her nights alone smoking and watching cable news to put herself to sleep, but she caves every time, revisiting the same memories — his hands and him kissing her neck and the furtive little smile on his face  — and she never feels the least bit guilty.  

     She changes the batteries on her vibrator two times in three weeks. If she just keeps it in her head, just a private fantasy, it doesn’t mean anything, nothing at all.   

* * *

       One night, when Dinesh and Gilfoyle are playing video games at top volume and Richard and Jared are nowhere to be found, she goes to his room. He’s standing on a chair trying to change a lightbulb that’s just out of reach.  

      “Erlich?”   

 

     “Mother _fuck_ —” He nearly topples off the chair, but steadies himself on a cluttered dresser.  “I mean—hey. What are you doing here?” 

     “I don’t know.” Of _course_  she sounds like a complete idiot the first time they’ve been in a room alone for weeks. “I thought I’d just—sorry. This is so gross. I can’t stop thinking about—”  

     “You don’t have to explain anything,” he says, sounding exactly like every movie she watched at every middle school sleepover she’d been to, and he puts his hands on her shoulders. “I’ve been thinking about it too.” 

     “Well, that’s good. That we’re thinking about the same thing. I mean, it’s not good, at all, but, you know.” 

     “Yeah, I know.” 

     She doesn’t even hesitate — all of a sudden she’s kissing him and grabbing his shoulders and it's kind of weird because neither of them were really prepared, and his face is a little scraggly against her cheek, but she keeps going, and guides him to the floor — the bed’s too creaky, she thinks, and there’s not enough time. 

     “Hey,” he says, his hand on her back, “what’s the hurry?” 

     “Don’t even worry about it,” she says, reaching for his belt. “Let’s just—” 

     “Are you sure?” he says, his fingers touching the hem of her skirt. “That looks like corduroy. I don’t want to get anything on it.” 

     “Dude,” she breathes, staring down at him, “just shut up. I’m sure.” 

     He laughs. “Well, alright.” 

     It’s quick, and messy, and probably the dumbest thing she’s ever done, but it’s exactly what she needs.

     She’s laying there on the floor, with her head on his chest, when her phone buzzes in her purse. It’s the _By the Seaside_ ringtone, which means work, which means her stomach flip-flops in dread.  

     “I should probably take this.” Monica stands up, pulling her blouse back down and buttoning it. “See you tomorrow?”   

     “Yeah,” he says, lifting his head from the floor to look at her. “All-staff meeting for the fourth quarter. Don’t forget.”  

     “I’m the one who sent the email,” she says, and closes the door.   

* * *

     “Are you busy?” Jared asks over the phone.   

 

     “No, not at all.” 

     “Well, I just got off the phone with the investor,” he says. His voice starts to carry down the hall, and Monica slips off to the kitchen, trying to hide by the side of the fridge. “And she made — an interesting offer, to say the least.”   

     “What was it?” 

     “Listen to this,” he says. He must be in the living room now. “She wants to open a Pied Piper office in New York.” 

     “Really?” she says, quietly. She hears something behind her, so she spins around — it’s Jared, looking like Casper the fucking Friendly Ghost. She swears loudly, her phone clattering to the floor. 

     “I didn’t mean to scare you, I just thought I heard you in here,” he says once she’s straightened herself out. “Um, what are you—” 

     “What were you saying? About New York?” 

     “I mean — we have a lot of options on, but our first concern should be who would represent us.” Jared hangs up his cell phone. “Of course, you and I would stay here to keep West Coast operations afloat, but —” 

     “What if I went?” Monica blurts.  

     “What?”  

     “I mean, why not? I’ve been here long enough that I have a pretty good handle on everyone's vision for Pied Piper. Wouldn’t it be a little risky to put all that on a stranger?” 

     “I mean—” 

     “We don’t even know if it’s for sure yet. I think it’d show some initiative if I took the helm on this.” 

     “If you say so.”

     She swallows. “I know so.” 

     Jared folds his hands behind his back, hesitating. “Can I ask another question? Why are you here so late?” 

     “You don’t know?” She laughs, bitterly. “I thought everybody knew.” 

* * *

      She opens the bedroom door and leans through the frame. The lights are out, but she sees him in his bed in the corner of the room, facing the wall. The room smells awful: like her cigarettes and his bong water and Chinese takeout.

 

     “Hey.” 

     He mumbles something. He’s probably asleep. 

     “I just found out they want to open an office in New York,” she says, gripping the doorknob tightly. “And I think, if it works out, I’ll move there and help run it.” 

     “We just had sex for the third time,” he says. There's no pride in his voice. No performance. “You want to put a continent between us already?” 

     She shrugs. “Maybe it’s safer that way. I’ll see you at the meeting.” 

     Erlich doesn’t say anything, so she closes the door. 

* * *

     "Why don’t we get started? We’ll just catch everyone else up later.”  

      _Everyone else_ , of course, just means one person. The empty chair at the table doesn’t go unnoticed. 

 

     “Monica, if I’m not mistaken, I think you have some news?” Jared asks, gesturing to the room. 

     “Yeah,” she says, putting on the perkiest smile she can muster. “There’s an investor in New York who’s really, really, interested. So interested that she floated the idea of an East Coast base of operations.” 

     “I don't get it," Richard says. "Who’d run the office?”  

     “Well, actually — _if_ this happens, we thought I would go. My best friend from college lives there, anyway, and I’ve gotten some practice managing a room full of programmers, so —” 

     “So you’d be leaving?”  

     “I’m not leaving — I’ll come back all the time. It’ll barely be any different.” 

     She sees Erlich in her periphery but tries to ignore it. 

     “Anyway, we’ve been doing Skype meetings, and we have some tentative plans. Jared, can you get the Powerpoint?” 

     “So what we put together was essentially a freemium model,” he says. “‘Pied Piper Lite' would be available for free. Then for a monthly or yearly fee you could pay for three-way video calling and higher quality, including, eventually, built-in 4K support.”  

    Erlich steps into the room, in a gray plaid bathrobe, a mug of tea in hand, and says: “Only if you want every member of the press lining up to skullfuck us.” 

     “Glad you could make it,” Monica says, quietly. 

     “Monica, I don’t know who this woman is, but she sounds like an absolute joke. I forbid it.” 

     Dinesh wrinkles his brow. “What are we going to do, make them pay for the app upfront?” 

     “What, do you really think people won’t shell out one dollar for the best video chat on the market?” 

     Jared looks between the two of them. “I don’t think we know that for sure—“ 

     “Well, _I_ know the world is watching Pied Piper. And the word ‘freemium’ might as well be a big red sign on our back that says ‘stab me.’” 

     “People are going to stop giving a shit,” Gilfoyle says. “In fact, they already did about a month ago.” 

     Monica wishes she could repeat the sentiment, but it doesn’t seem professional, she just nods. “I… think you’re going to be alone on this one, Erlich.”  

     Then suddenly Richard looks up. "You know what? He’s right. This is total bullshit.” 

_Oh my God_ , she thinks. 

     “Seriously, why didn’t you guys run this by me?”  

     Jared frowns. “Well, we thought we’d run it by you here —” 

     “So what, Monica, you’re announcing these life-altering plans to move away and open an office in New York before you asked me if I thought that was a good idea or if I, you know, actually wanted you to do that?” 

     She folds her arms. “I distinctly remember you telling me just to give you the shortlist in the meeting, so everyone could —” 

     “That is _not_ the point!” Richard stands up, looking as frazzled as Monica feels. "You said it yourself; you’re gonna move to New York, with your friend or something, to tell people what to do and make money off us and never have to deal with us again. So, Monica, I’m glad you have it all figured out!”  

     “I don’t think you understand. What kind of ulterior motive do you think I’d even have? I’d be moving a continent away from my _home_ to be what is essentially an office manager, deferring to _you_ , because it would help make the company more money, which is my fucking job!” 

     She can’t even process what she just said. Jared steps in, his hands raised cautiously. “Why don’t we all put this meeting on hold for a while? We can push it back to next week.” 

     “Yeah, uh, meeting adjourned,” Richard says, sputtering a little. “Lucky for you, I have to go to Home Depot to get a new fucking ladder. But when I get back —” 

     “Good night, guys,” Dinesh says to the Skype call on the monitor. He hangs up to a soft chorus of uncomfortable goodbyes. 

     Jared says something to Richard quietly, and they go off to the kitchen — on the way out, he and Monica exchange uneasy professional smiles. Erlich’s gone. She didn’t see when he left. 

     “Monica, are you really leaving?” Dinesh finally asks, once the room clears. 

     “I don’t know. I’m going to have a cigarette, and then I’m going to come back and we’re going to talk about literally anything else. Okay?” 

* * *

      She’s standing by the pool, already on her second cigarette, when the sliding glass door opens. 

     “Monica, don’t go.”  

     “What the hell are you doing?” she says, turning around. “You _knew_ Richard would agree with you no matter what. This is the best thing that we could do.” 

     “Is it?” he says. “Because from here, it looks like you’re just running away.” 

     He’s standing there, in his robe and sneakers, looking like a complete idiot. She knows he’s not above letting his guard down for her, but this is different, almost desperate. 

     “Maybe it’s not about you at all,” she says, dropping the cigarette on the concrete and stamping it out. "Maybe it’s about what’s best for the company.” 

     “Oh, come _on_ , Monica. I did my research. It’s a good offer, but it’s not _that_ good.” He steps between deck chairs until there’s just one separating them. “What are you afraid of?” 

     “You said it yourself. They won’t take me seriously anymore.” 

     “Who, Dinesh and Gilfoyle? Is that _really_ what you’re worried about?” 

     “And Richard, and probably Jared, and Laurie if she finds out, and — anyone I have professional ties to, really. And my mom is _not_ going to like you, and my friends are going to _hate_ you, and—” 

     “They don’t have to like me,” he says. “And you don’t have to give a shit what they think.”

     “It’s not that easy,” she says. 

     “Monica.” He’s standing closer to her now. "I like you a lot. I think we should be together. And if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t, but I know we’ll both spend our lives just wondering.” 

     She wants to ask him what stupid rom-com he fished that monologue out of, but that seems cruel, even for her. Finally, he slouches his shoulders, his hands in his pockets, looking more vulnerable than she’d ever seen him. 

     “Fuck, man,” he says, “let’s just give it a try. What do you say?” 

* * *

     When she comes back inside, Dinesh and Gilfoyle are both standing at the kitchen counter, suspiciously close to the glass door, guilty looks light up across both their faces when she looks at them.  

 

     Dinesh stammers a bit, and then says: “So —”

     “I’m staying,” she says, and she smiles when Dinesh looks relieved. “And we’re having drinks tonight. It’s Friday, after all.” 

     Gilfoyle crosses his arms. “Is Erlich invited?” 

     Erlich opens the sliding glass door, cold air rushing in. “As long as it’s in my living room, I’m invited to any goddamn Friday night social gathering you host.”

    “Fine, but no PDA,” Dinesh says. “I don't even want to think about you two having sex, no offense.”

    “I don't want to think about you two, either,” Erlich says, getting a yogurt from the fridge, "but that doesn't stop you from literally sexting right next to me, Dinesh.”

     Gilfoyle turns to Dinesh, genuinely surprised. “You sexted me next to Erlich?”  

    “Can we talk about this later?”

    “So it's a double date,” Monica smirks. They leave the kitchen, together. 

    When they're gone Dinesh folds his arms and whistles. "Did you see that? They're doing snappy one-liners now." 

    "I saw," Gilfoyle says. "How long do you give it? A month?" 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! if you're into my stuff, check out my [fandom tumble blog site](http://bachmannsearningsoverride.tumblr.com/) for more!


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